Lebenslauf

Konstantin’s field is history of the ancient Mediterranean world, in particular the versatile interactions between Greeks and their non-Greek neighbours in the Black Sea region, such as Thracians, Scythians, Sarmatians and the diverse populations of Asia Minor and Caucasus. His research interests lie at the intersection of historical geography, cultural ecology and resource management, cognitive perception of space and the ancient methods of sampling, interpreting and transmitting ethno-geographical data by word of mouth, through cognitive and physical mapping, or in writing – all they forming a solid background for an advanced explanation of political, military, socio-economic and cultural phenomena within the Mediterranean world. Here belong the formation of and the dynamic correlation between polis and monarchic institutions, the ethno-demographic and cultural realities of colonization, warfare and diplomacy from early Greek times to the very end of the Hellenistic period, including the earlier stage of the Roman expansion into the eastern Mediterranean. Konstantin taught Ancient History at St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia in his role as Associate Professor for many years. He was also a teaching and research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at Martin Luther University of Halle, University of Saarland and Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg where he worked on the completion of his monographs on key Hellenistic authors such as Strabo and Pseudo-Scymnus. He also have extensive experience in theoretical and field archaeology as an active member of German-Bulgarian and French-Bulgarian projects in the 80s and 90s. Currently he teaches Ancient Civilizations and Religions, as well as Research Methods in Canada. His teaching and research is based on a variety of ancient sources such as literary texts, visual narratives, maps, onomastic, epigraphic and archaeological materials.

 

Over recent years, Konstantin has focused on exploring three major topics:

- The origin of Greek prose, map-making and historiography and their ethno-geographical backdrop in Hecataeus and Herodotus;

- Visualization of ancient cognitive models and reconstruction of physical maps based on content analysis of specific ancient texts, on the Gestalt theoretical principles, cognitive semantic, and by means of analogical reasoning;

- Cultural diversity within and contributions of ethnic minorities to Classical civilization.

Beschreibung des Forschungsvorhabens

„Above the Fortieth Parallel North: Contextualizing Accounts from Ancient Thrace and the Euxine Pontus“

 

This research project owes special thanks to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation whose generous support makes it possible to be carried out in close collaboration with Prof. Dr. Klaus Geus and all the colleagues from the Arbeitsbereich für Historische Geographie des antiken Mittelmeerraumes who are being involved in researching historical geographical issues including space perception in Herodotus.

The aim of this project is to provide some insights into the process of data-gathering in Hecataeus and Herodotus which has resulted in typologically similar geographical and ethnographical logoi. Searching in depth for the true originators of these specific narratives as wells as for the genuine narrative components, modules, and self-contained units delivered by ‘local experts’ to the two extensive travellers, the author introduced the term “bifocal perspective” of the Periegesis Ges/Ges Periodos in order to explain the balance between both the coastline and the inland perspective based on explicit ancient accounts. He concentrates particularly on two types of inland-perspective narratives, the periegesis-style logos and periodos-style logos, which have resulted from the inevitable overlap of information between the logographic work of Hecataeus and its illustration, the perfected map of the world. In order to distinguish between the two narratives, the project pays more attention to the specific way the rivers have been described and their condition of being mappable. It turns out that delineations of rivers from source to mouth are capable to be put on a map and they may have belonged to periodos-style logoi, whereas the rivers in periegesis-style logoi served solely for anonymous crossing points on the way of local guides. Instructive parallels drown from Xenophon’s Anabasis build up the vivid picture of the periegesis in the making, on daily basis, and corroborate the author’s thesis that ready-made ethno-geographical logoi and information modules traditionally created from inland perspective shaped the work of the pioneering prose-writers. The author employs the results of his analysis on several completely independent and widely differing Herodotean narratives  concerning Scythia, Egypt, Libya, Thrace, Asia Minor, and the Middle East with the Caspian region.

In the current project, particular attention is paid, first, to the unique characteristics of the Danube-Tributary Account in Hdt. 4.48-49 and its Extension in 2.33; second, the identification of the Danube tributaries; third, to the underlying and topographically dense cognitive map; and fourth, but not least, to the epistemological, historical and political contexts of the Danube-tributary account. The close examination of these contexts would reveal a gamut of pragmatic purposes of this remarkable data collection and what the latter had drawn upon before it eventually landed in Herodotus’ text. By delving into the broader set of features of that account the study would result in a revision of the timeline of Hecataeus of Miletus, his career as a logopoios, and his motivation as a writer and a public figure. It would also argue that Hecataeus was one of those who logistically prepared his contemporary Scythian campaign (ca. 513 BCE), and that the Danube-Tributary Account could be regarded as the possible key to a relatively detailed reconstruction of one of the segments of the famous Hecataeus’ map.

For the purpose of its research objectives, the study takes the approaches of text-criticism, conventional content analysis, the Gestalt principles of perception in cognitive mapping, and in particular the concrete figure-background connotation.

Books

2008/2011/²2014. History and Civilizations (Ancient World). Grade 7 (Bulg.; co-author and team leader: Winner in the National Competition 2008 for a new textbook in History, conducted by the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Republic of Bulgaria), Sofia 2008, 2011 (reprint), 2014 (second edition), 191 pp.

2007. Pseudo-Skymnos or Semos of Delos. Studies on Accounts of Greek Writers about the Western Pontus Euxine, (Bulgarian edition with a summary in English). University Press Sofia, 2007, 265 pp.

2004. Pseudo-Skymnos (Semos von Delos?) (= Palingenesia. Schriftenreihe für Klassische Altertums­wissen­schaften Bd. 82). Stuttgart 2004, Franz Steiner Publishing House Stuttgart. 268 pp.

2003.  Die Thraker südlich vom Balkan in den Geographika Strabos. Quel­len­kritische Unter­suchungen (= Palingenesia. Schriftenreihe für Klassische Altertums­wissen­schaften Bd. 81). Wiesbaden 2003, Franz Steiner Publishing House Stuttgart. 399 pp.

2003. Rulers of Ancient Europe (English and Bulgarian version). Sofia, 2003, Publ. Comp. KIBEA. 120 pp. Rev. M. Slavova, About the Ancient Rulers. In: Newspaper for Literature 41/ 17. Dec. 2003, p. 4 Rev. M. Tacheva, Rulers of Ancient Europe. In: Culture 4/ 30. Jan. 2004, p. 7.

Greek translation Publ. Comp. Fytraki, 2007, 155 pp.

2000. Thracian Antiquity. Historical Essays. (Bulg.) Sofia, 2000, 331 pp.

 

Selected Articles

2019.The Danube-Tributary Account in Herodotus 4.48-49. In Studies in ‘common sense geography’: new perspectives on ancient texts, Klaus Geus, Martin Thiering (unter Mitarbeit von Victor Gysembergh und Søren Lund Sørensen) (Eds.). Frankfurt; Bern; New York; Ox­        ford: Peter Lang (Zivilisationen und Geschichte), 22-84 (forthcoming December 2019).

2015. New observations on the Dura Periplus-Map and the Pseudo-Arrian’s Periplus of the Black Sea. In International Workshop: "Black Sea (5th-7th century AD): The Religious, Military, and Economic Middle Ground and Its Representations", H.-J. Gehrke, A. Dan, and A. Podossinov (eds.), held by École Normale Supérieure, March 23–25, 2015, Paris (pre-print), 373–398.

2012. The “Sacred Counsel”: On Some Features of the Periegesis, Periodos, and Their Originators. Mapping the Oikumene. M. Rathmann & K. Geus (eds.), Berlin (de Gruyter), 1-34.

2012. Abrupolis (I), King of the Sapaeans, in: Amici Populi Romani (APR 04), ed. by Altay Coskun, Waterloo, On. 2010. URL: http://www.apr.uwaterloo.ca.

2012. Sitas, King of the Dentheletes, in: Amici Populi Romani (APR 04), ed. by Altay Coskun, Waterloo, On. 2010. URL: http://www.apr.uwaterloo.ca.

2008. The Secret of the Tomb (Bulg.). In: Enlightener. The Bulgarian Journal of History and Archaeology. April – June 2008, 4-12.

2007. Diplomacy in the time of plague. In: International Academic Seminar Jubilaeus VI, 21. - 22. 05. 2004 University of Sofia. Sofia 2007, 103-115.

2006. Von Tymnes bis Suda: Muster zur Schilderung des nord-westlichen Pontosraumes innerhalb der antiken und postantiken Überlieferung. In: Pontos Euxeinos. Beiträge zur Archäologie und Geschichte des antiken Schwarzmeer- und Balkanraumes. Prof. Dr. Manfred Oppermann zum 65. Geburtstag (= ZAKS 10), Langenweißbach, 2006, 433-446.

2002. The First Inscription in Linear B from Inland Thrace (Drama-Kairaka). In: Jubilaeus V. Collection dedicated to Professor Margarita Tacheva, Sofia, 2002, 32-60.

2000. The Image Language in Monuments of Thracian Culture (Bulg.). In: Past 2, 2000, 5-24

2000. Identification archéologique et historique de l’emporion de Pistiros en Thrace. In: BCH 123/1, 2000, 319-329.

 

Most Recent Book Reviews

2019.Popa, A. (2015). Untersuchungen zu den römisch-barbarischen Kontakten östlich der römischen Provinz Dacia (Antiquitas Reihe 3, Bd. 47). Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt Gmbh. In Gnomon 91, 3, 246-250.

 

2016. Podossinov, A. ed. (2014). The Periphery of the Classical World in Ancient Geography and Cartography (Colloquia antiqua. Supplements to the Journal Ancient West & East 12). Leuven, Paris, Walpole, MA: Peeters. In Orbis Terrarum 13, 289-292.

 

2014. Lolos, Y. (2011). Land of Sikyon: Archaeology and History of a Greek City-State. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. In Phoenix, A Journal of the Classical Association of Canada 68, 3-4, 385-388.